Evidence of meeting #20 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was support.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
The 13th month is coming soon when you will be on your own. Are you ready for the 13th month? Has anybody you know in your complex found a job?
As an Individual
No, because we lost approximately three months in the hotel and two months of school, so we're talking about a total loss of five months. We should have started to gain experience during that period of time to be qualified to stand on our own later on.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Will you be staying in the same house after one year?
As an Individual
No. They mentioned to us about another residence in city housing that is less costly, but it's too far. It would require an hour and a half by bus from where I'm living. I'm very anxious about that. We're ready to live in a less expensive one, but again, we don't want to replace that with a different set of problems.
Conservative
Bob Saroya Conservative Markham—Unionville, ON
Government-sponsored refugees are assisted for 12 months. The 13th month is coming soon. Is there anything you would like to say? Are you ready to move on by yourself or do you still need government assistance?
As an Individual
Definitely we need somebody to continue to follow up with us: what to do, how to find employment, where to go, and how to go about our life. What would we do about that year? We have learned only half of what we were required to learn, so we still need to continue to learn before we can stand on our own.
We do not want to continue to be a burden. We want to work and be independent and be useful to our society through our skills.
Liberal
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I'll go back to the Calgary Board of Education and the Catholic Board of Education.
You mentioned, Ms. Bowen-Eyre, that you are having your budget meeting tonight. With the time remaining, could you tell the committee what conversations you've had with your provincial colleagues on how to absorb these costs? What will you be telling the people who are at your budget meeting tonight on how to best deliver service to all students, as well as refugees, given the funding constraints that have been created by the federal government's decision to increase the influx in such a short period of time without consultation?
Chair, School District 19, Calgary Board of Education
We have been having conversations. We've had both formal and informal requests looking for support go to both the provincial and the federal governments. Our board reached out to every school board across the country and asked them to participate in a joint advocacy, knowing that all school boards across the province were facing similar challenges as we are within the Calgary Board of Education. We know different agreements have been made in different provinces. Within our province, our board has advocated very strongly at every opportunity when we have met with the provincial education minister, and we will not let up. We will continue to advocate. We believe it's in the best interests of our school board and our students.
Next year, the new students who have arrived will be rolled up as part of the enrolment.
Liberal
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much.
I think for the Lower Mainland there are some issues with respect to the volume. I think that's the case for everybody else who's just trying to manage.
For us, we have received more than 1,600 Syrian refugees in a very short time frame. In the beginning, I think the government's plan was to house the Syrian refugees temporarily on the military bases, and that changed all of a sudden. I think that the non-profit agencies were not prepared with respect to that change of course, and all of sudden the refugees were arriving into the community.
We have a large volume of people and the NGOs weren't prepared to receive this large number in such a short time frame. We ran into lots of problems with people being stuck in hotels and not being able to get access to permanent housing.
Then stemming from that, it flows with all the resettlement services and the deficiency in providing the necessary support for the Syrian refugees. Consequently we see the community, the volunteers such as you, Mr. Sawaf, and others who stepped in as best they could to provide assistance to Syrian refugee families.
In that process, of course, none of you are funded. You're just doing this off the side of your desk as a volunteer while maintaining your own job.
There were deficiencies that were identified because there were people in the community who speak the language, who understand the culture, who could step in to provide assistance, but there was zero coordination of that from the government side. There was no programming with respect to that, and no funding to these new agencies that could have done some of this work to alleviate the pressure.
I see some of the challenges that are emerging, and they continue today. Even for people who have moved out of the temporary housing, out of the hotels into the permanent housing, resettlement service is deficient. That's sort of what I'm hearing from both you, Mr. Sawaf and Ms. Allhalaq. Am I correct in understanding the scenario properly?
Mr. Sawaf, you go first.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I'll turn to how to fix the problem going forward, aside from the government needing to actually provide support and funding to new agencies to enter into the fray to alleviate the pressure, specifically in terms of programming that could provide support.
I think, Mr. Sawaf, you mentioned the issue around people being left alone and that they need guidance. For example, are you talking about having resettlement workers visit Syrian refugee families in their homes and to help them with getting medical appointments, getting translation organized, so that they can actually have proper translation when they have major health issues that they're dealing with, trying to figure out where to enrol their children for school, and so on?
I wonder if you could elaborate on that. What specific resettlement services need to be provided to the Syrian refugees who have now finally made it into permanent housing?
As an Individual
Actually, it's about teaching them how to get to areas, what to do for their next steps, plan for them, because they don't know how to plan. In a new country, they don't know what to do first or what's the highest priority to do in this country.
Yes, go with them to the doctor's or tell them how to register for school, or at least guide them; for example, this school has somebody Arabic and ask for so-and-so and they'll help you. Give them some guidance. There is no guidance. There is nothing.
Going back to the ward and being left alone, yes this is a reason.
Also, hire qualified people to do it. Yes, they will run after you in the beginning to get your names. They need the names; they need the numbers for their quotas and their deliverables. They need that. It's true.
At the beginning, they'll take all your names down—okay I need you and you and you—and then that's it. These are the deliverables that they have, these clients or people whom they're servicing.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Once they collect the name and the information, the follow-up in providing the service is deficient and that's part of the big challenge.
On the question around employment, did I hear you correctly to say that there are individuals, I guess potential employers that are out there, who are offering jobs to Syrian refugees below the minimum wage, and perhaps maybe even offering to hire them under the table? In that sense, they are really taking advantage of Syrian refugees because they're desperate to get some sort of income.
As an Individual
Yes.
I don't know the names if anybody wants to ask me for them, but not to get anybody into trouble, yes. Yes, 100%.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
That's the stuff that you're hearing is going on in the broader community.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
You mentioned the issue around pods, and you said that initially you had these pods that were set up where you would have a group of Syrian refugees with someone who has Canadian experience to take them to the work site, and that this is now not being worked on because the funding was eliminated.
Could you elaborate on that?
As an Individual
That was through the organization I work with, the British Columbia Construction Association. They had the program. When I made that pitch, they were really interested. They said, “Let's just see if it works.” It did work. We matched them even with somebody without the background. There is a shortage of labour in the construction industry, and these Syrian refugees can fill this shortage. That's supply and demand, right? We placed them, and it was a huge success. You can have five at a time being placed in different industries, whether it's framing, painting, flooring, concrete, etc.
Then that was stopped. We can't engage anyone—
As an Individual
With the funding program, they said they needed to give it back to the existing agencies that worked for them before. They handled employment. We couldn't handle employment anymore.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I see. You had an employment program that was working effectively, and the funding ran out because it was a pilot program, and then it ended.
As an Individual
It was shifted, yes, to only pre-arrivals. It was shifted to only people offshore, not people actually in Canada. They left the “in Canada” for service agencies that are currently being funded, and they have employment programs through the agencies. Every agency we mentioned has an employment sector in it.
